Keene planning board adopts 2025 comprehensive master plan after multi-year process

The Keene Planning, Licenses and Development Committee adopted the City of Keene 2025 Comprehensive Master Plan after a public hearing and unanimous vote. The plan, developed over roughly two years with a consultant team, a steering committee and multiple public engagement events, lays out a community vision, six strategic pillars, a future land-use map and an implementation matrix of prioritized actions.

Staff summarized the multi-phase process: a public-engagement and visioning phase (including a community survey with 648 responses and a two-day think-tank workshop), followed by a second phase that used six task forces to translate the vision into goals and prioritized actions. The plan’s pillars address housing ("livable housing"), economy, mobility, neighborhoods, workforce and the environment. The future land-use map uses seven character areas—downtown, residential neighborhoods, neighborhood business nodes, corridor-oriented commerce, conservation and low-impact recreation, rural residential/working landscapes, and production and innovation—to describe desired physical character rather than parcel-level zoning.

Staff and the board stressed that the master plan is advisory and conceptual, intended to guide future zoning, capital programming and regulatory updates. The board noted the plan’s emphasis on increasing housing supply and diversity, including infill and redevelopment, and on aligning city policies and budgets with plan priorities. A public commenter expressed support and encouraged continued community engagement. Following a unanimous motion to adopt the plan, the board completed the certificate of adoption required by state law and directed staff to file the adopted plan and certificate with the city clerk and post materials online.

Planning staff said next steps include using the implementation matrix to identify immediate actions the city can lead, working with regional partners where the city is not the lead, and recommending specific regulatory or programmatic changes (such as site-plan review threshold revisions) through future meetings.